Alwani was one of the earliest founders of the U.S. Muslim Students Association (MSA), the first Muslim Brotherhood organization in the United States. Alwani was also major player in the formation of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS), and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). Alwani’s intellectual writings focused on Islamic jurisprudence, particularly as it relates to Muslims living as minority populations in the West (Fiqh of Minorities), and his work on the “Islamization of Knowledge”, an effort spearheaded by IIIT to construct an Islamic alternative to western-dominated social and applied sciences.

Alwani is best known in Counterterrorism circles for his letter to convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad organizer Sami Al-Arian, which linked the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated IIIT to the PIJ front organization, the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE). As we wrote in the Center’s monograph “The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT): The Muslim Brotherhood’s Think Tank,”:

A seizure of document in 1995 by federal agents under a search warrant turned up a letter from IIIT President Taha Jaber Al-Alwani to Sami Al-Arian, dated November 19, 1991, with Alwani referring to payment of monies from IIIT to PIJ. He additionally wrote that he and his colleagues and their organization considered themselves to be indistinguishable from Al-Arian, [PIJ leader Ramada] Shallah and other founders and members of PIJ. In this same letter, Alwani mentioned the $45,000 that Safa Group–of which IIIT is a member–actually transferred to Al-Arian, as part of a total $50,000. This $50,000 contribution by IIIT to PIJ front-group WISE was made between the years of 1991 and 1992. A 1991 letter from PIJ’s Secretary General Ramadan Shallah stated that IIIT was the largest contributor to WISE. In the letter to Sami Al-Arian discussing the transfer of funds to WISE, Alwani noted that, “We consider you as a group… a part and extension of us. Also we are a part and extension of you.” He further indicated that, “I would like to affirm these feelings to you directly on my behalf, and on behalf of all my brothers, Drs. Abdel-Hamid [AbuSulayman], Jamal [Barzinji], Ahmad [Totonji], and Hisham [Al-Talib], and, at the same time, affirm to you that when we make a commitment to you, or try to offer, we do it as a group regardless of the party or façade you use the donation for.

A copy of a fatwa signed by Alwani, sometime between December 1988 and November 1989, stated that, “…Jihad is the only way to liberate Palestine; that no person or authority may settle the Jews on the land of Palestine or cede to them any part thereof, or recognize any right therein for them.”

Alwani represents the latest in a series of high-level influential Muslim Brotherhood leaders in the United States passing away, including Jamal Barzinji, Mohammed Al-Hanooti, and Maher Hathout. As we’ve noted previously as the original founding members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network pass away, it will require open source researchers and analysts of the Muslim Brotherhood to redouble their efforts, and to more extensively cooperate among themselves, as they examine the nature and extent of the Brotherhood’s efforts among younger generations of Islamists.

The House Judiciary Committee approved H.R. 3892, the “Muslim Brotherhood Terrorism Designation Act” in a party line vote of 17-10 today, with all Republicans voting in favor. The bill calls for the U.S. State Department to either designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group or formally state their reasons why the group cannot be listed.

To open the hearing, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), read directly from “An Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood strategic document seized in a terrorism raid, and submitted at the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial. Goodlatte quoted the memo’s author, Mohammed Akram Adlouni, who wrote that the Brotherhood’s “Work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Goodlatte noted the Brotherhood’s role in extorting and materially supporting global terrorism and pointed out that designation of the Muslim Brotherhood would require the Obama Administration deny admission to foreign aliens with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Obama Administration’s willingness to admit Muslim Brotherhood members with ties to terrorism has been a point of contention with Congress. In May of 2014 the Senate Oversight Committee began an investigation into a reported DHS “Hands Off List” which permitted high ranking Muslim Brotherhood leader Jamal Badawi to enter the country, despite terrorism ties. Early in the Obama Administration, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally waived a ban on entry for Tariq Ramadan, a Muslim Brotherhood leader in Europe and the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan Al Banna. Ramadan had been banned from the U.S. under President Bush for providing funds to Hamas-linked charities.

The bill was opposed by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who accused the bill of “Islamophobia” pushed for political purposes. Conyers took the opportunity to submit into the record statements on behalf of John L. Esposito, a Georgetown University professor, and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR.)

Perhaps ironically, both Esposito and CAIR have extensive Muslim Brotherhood ties. Esposito was a former advisory board member for the Hamas/MB think tank known as the United Association for Studies And Research (UASR), founded by Deputy Hamas Chairman Mousa abu Marzook. UASR is actually explicitly named in the bill, which makes Esposito’s statement particularly self-serving. Esposito also has ties to the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a think tank investigated for ties to Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Esposito has made something of a career defending the Muslim Brotherhood from accusations of terrorism, including at the Holy Land Foundation Trial and during the UK report on the Muslim Brotherhood carried out last year at the request of Prime Minister David Cameron.

The Council on American Islamic Relations on the other hand isn’t just supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood, they are the Muslim Brotherhood, a fact noted within the text of the bill’s findings.

According to testimony of FBI agents and documents submitted as evidence in federal trial, CAIR was founded subsequent to an October 2-3, 1993 meeting in Philadelphia of the Palestine Committee,which the Department of Justice described as a covert organization established by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States to order to support Hamas. A 1994 Palestine Committee document submitted at Federal trial identifies CAIR as one of its “working organizations.” An FBI affidavit obtained by FOIA request identifies Omar Ahmad (a.k.a Omar Yehya) one of CAIR’s founders as a “one of the leaders of Hamas.” The same affidavit notes that Palestine Committee members “were also active US MB members.” CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad were both named by the FBI during Federal trial as Palestine Committee members.Both men’s names appear in a phonebook of Palestine Committee members submitted at federal trial. In 1994, CAIR executive Director Nihad Awad was videotaped publicly announcing his support for Hamas.

Conyers himself has a long history of associating with CAIR, including attending annual banquets. According to “Islamist Money Watch”, a program of the Middle East Forum, Conyers has received thousands of dollars from individuals linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, including $2000 from Muthanna Al-Hanooti in 1998. Al-Hanooti was director of CAIR Michigan suspected of being paid with oil contracts to cooperate with Iraqi intelligence in the run up to the 2003 Iraq War. Hanooti was convicted of sanctions violations. Hanooti’s late father, Mohammed Al-Hanooti was also a major Muslim Brotherhood leader, who was reported by the FBI to have raised $6 million for Hamas.

The Muslim Brotherhood Terror Designation bill was briefly amended in order to streamline the bill by removing the bill’s “Findings” section, which provided an extensive list of facts regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and its role in Islamic terrorism around the globe, including in Egypt where it has overtly engaged in terrorist activities against the government, and in the United States, where it has conducted terrorism finance and recruitment activities.

While a positive first step, the bill’s passage at the judiciary committee is only one of several likely hurdles that will need to be passed, including markups in the Foreign Affairs Committee and other relevant committees. In the House the bill is authored by Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and has 28 Co-Sponsors. In the Senate, the companion bill S.2230 is sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).

The center received a $20 million gift from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in 2005.

The Fairfax Institute offers certificates in Imam and Muslim Community Leadership and in Islamic Thought. That may sound benign on its face, but the Institute’s parent, the IIIT, long has touted the “Islamization of Knowledge,” a program which makes Islam the key to solving society’s ills.

In implementation plans, IIIT co-founder Ismail al-Faruqi made it clear his institute’s outreach was not about teaching Westerners about Islam. Rather, its purpose is to infuse superior Islamic principles to add revelation to Western academic pursuits which are based solely on “reasoning.”

While the Muslim community in the undeveloped world “is in many respects backward,” Faruqi wrote in 1982, “…in the respect of possessing the truth, the ideological statement of it which is most conducive to religious, ethical, and material prosperity at the same time, the ummah is second to none. Because of Islam, the ummah alone possesses the vision required for the felicity of humankind, for history to be as Allah (SWT) has desired it to be.”

During a 2010 lecture, Voll described Faruqi, a Muslim Brotherhood luminary who was murdered in 1986, as “a good case of the modern intellectual who is a believer and provides a good example for thinking about what it means to be a ‘believing intellectual’ in the modern era.”

IIIT, located about 22 miles from Washington, D.C. in Herndon, Va., also was investigated for possible terror financing. A 2003 search warrant affidavit alleged that the think tank was part of a network of up to 100 non-profit and for-profit organizations, inter-related through corporate officers and holding companies that facilitated terrorist funding. Financial records reviewed by law enforcement officials exhibited “a convoluted web of multiple transactions between related corporations and charities that made it virtually impossible for federal investigators to ascertain where the money … ultimately went.”

Some of the money that was clearly traceable included direct payments to a Florida think-tank which then was home to at least four members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad‘s Shura Council, in effect, its governing board. One of those directors, Ramadan Shallah, has led the terrorist group since late 1995.

Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor who created the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), self-identified as the PIJ board’s secretary. Al-Arian also ran a charity called the Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP) which wasdescribed as “the active arm of the Islamic Jihad Movement Palestine” but was called ICP in America “for security reasons.” ICP rallies routinely featured PIJ spiritual leader Abdel Aziz Odeh and PIJ imagery.

IIIT President Taha Jaber Al-Alwani “spoke at ICP conferences with Al-Arian, Shallah, Sheik Odeh (spiritual leader and co-founder of PIJ) and Sheik Rahman (the ‘Blind Sheik’ convicted of conspiracy to blow up New York tunnels and the United Nations in New York in October 1995). Inasmuch as ICP conferences were, in essence, PIJ conferences, Alwani has long been a supporter of PIJ,” the 2003 affidavit said.

In a 1992 letter to Al-Arian, Al-Alwani referred to WISE as “a part of us and an extension of us.” Records also list Al-Alwani as chairman of the WISE board of trustees.

In a 2014 IIIT promotional video, Voll says the institute helps American academics “have a more global view of Islam.”

A look at past statements by Voll and Brown shows their consistent pattern of embracing and defending Islamists, including Al-Arian, who was deported from the United States a year ago and is believed to be in Turkey.

A 2007 article Voll co-authored with Esposito described Al-Arian as “a proud and committed American and Palestinian professor and activist” and claimed that both Al-Arian and the American justice system has become “casualties of the erosion of civil liberties post-9/11.”

Brown, likewise, has played down the threat from radical Islamists, and has alleged rising Islamophobia to have led to wrongful convictions in a number of federally-prosecuted terrorism cases.

Muslims care about a lot of issues, Brown said last May at a conference organized by the Islamist groups Muslim American Society and the Islamic Circle of North America. That includes events in Kashmir, the Palestinian cause and more. “Or whether it’s here in America, whether it’s Muslims targeted for entrapment by the Justice Department or whether it’s Muslims who are convicted of crimes that they didn’t commit because the justice system is biased against them. Because racism and stereotypes against Muslims are allowed to influence the outcome of trials.” (8:15 in the video)

This, he claimed, has a chilling effect on free speech.

“It’s scary to get up and speak out about Palestine, it’s scary to get up and speak about how Muslims who are accused of terrorism might not be guilty and we need to give them the benefit of the doubt.” (8:40 in the video)

In a July 2011 interview with The Egyptian Gazette, Brown dismissed any danger from Islamists gaining power in the Egyptian elections following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak: “I do not think life in Egypt will dramatically change if the president or ruling party are self-proclaimed ‘Islamists.’ Egypt is already a very Islamic society: no-one drinks in the street, people dress conservatively, even the financial system has to justify its operations in terms of Islam.”

“The country is too important to write off and this is not 1979,” he added. “The ‘Islamic threat’ so often touted by Western pundits has been undermined by factors like AK Party rule in Turkey, and it will be less frightening when people see that Egypt is not much different from before.”

But once in power, the Brotherhood moved to amend the Constitution to entrench its hold on government, and violently suppressed public protests. Brown was right to distinguish Egypt from Iran in 1979, though. Egypt, unlike the Islamic Republic, still had an independent military which forced the Islamists from power after spontaneous street demonstrations attracted millions of people demanding change.

The ACMCU had to postpone a program on “Egypt and the Struggle for Democracy” in the fall of 2013, after it was revealed that the only Coptic Christian panelist invited was a member of Egypt’s Nazi Party.

At a 2012 IamY (Inspiring American Muslim Youth) convention, Brown claimed Muslims were falsely implicated in terrorist cases and blamed Islamophobia for this. As an example, he cited the case of a Staten Island man who was “tried for including the Hizballah channel in a cable package he’s offering.” The Staten Island man, who Brown claimed was “not even doing anything…just offering a cable channel,” in factpleaded guilty to providing support to the terrorist group Hizballah and was sentenced to 5½ years in prison.

Brown further asserted that al-Qaida operative Tarek Mehanna was convicted “because he simply put up on his website some al-Qaida videos with translations.” Mehanna was sentenced to 17½ years in prison in 2012 on terrorism-related charges that included travel to the Middle East to obtain military-type training at a terrorist camp to prepare for jihad against U.S. interests, including American and allied troops stationed in Iraq.

He also criticized the long prison sentences meted out to several senior officials tied to the Holy Land Foundation for funneling millions of dollars to the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas: “You have people now, people who ran the Holy Land Foundation charity organization in this country in prison for 60-80 years. Underground, for what? Feeding orphans?” In 2008 a federal jury found all defendants in the trialguilty on all counts of helping finance Hamas.

Brown’s boss at Georgetown University, John Esposito, testified as an expert witness for the defense.

In comments provided to the IPT, Jeffrey Bale, an expert on violent political and religious extremism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), California, expressed concern at “the affiliation of Professors Voll and Brown with a school linked to the IIIT, a well-known component of the Muslim Brotherhood network in the U.S.”

“Both students and other observers who recognize the essentially anti-democratic agendas of such Islamist groups should be concerned about this formal affiliation with the Fairfax Institute because it is another indicator of the pro-Islamist biases of these particular academics,” Bale said.

Despite its known radical ties, IIIT continues to operate ostensibly as a legitimate academic institution that seeks to “bridge the intellectual divide between the Islamic tradition and Western civilization” through various funding and outreach programs with mainstream American universities and colleges and government-funded institutions.

In 2005, in line with its funding of WISE at USF in the 1990s, the Virginia think tank offered to endow a chair in Islamic Studies at the University of Central Florida outside Orlando. IIIT also made a $1.5 million grant to George Mason University in 2008 to help expand its Islamic studies program.

In addition, IIIT signed a memorandum of agreement with Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va., to promote academic exchanges that included hosting a program on Islam in collaboration with the radical Muslim Student Association and Student Life’s Intercultural Programs at Shenandoah University.

Not every university has taken IIIT’s money, however. In 2008, Temple University – where Faruqi once taught Esposito – refused $1.5 million in funding from IIIT for a chair in Islamic studies after concerns were raised about IIIT’s alleged ties to terrorist organizations.

In addition to Georgetown professors serving on the faculty of the Fairfax Institute, the IPT investigation found that the Institute recently offered a course taught by instructors from Georgetown University’s The Bridge Initiative titled, “Understanding Islamophobia in America.”

“Students will learn about the history of the term ‘Islamophobia’ and its earliest manifestations; its parallels with similar prejudices that have affected other groups through time; the primary mechanisms that drive Islamophobia in the United States; its emergence in both liberal and conservative discourse; its manifestations in mainstream and social media; and creative ways to counter it,” a course syllabus posted on the institute’s website reads.

There are now at least twelve confirmed dead in the terrorist attack carried out by at least three jihadist gunmen against the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo. While it practices equal-opportunity satire, lampooning Islam has proved lethal for the magazine, just as it has for so many others who dare to exercise the bedrock Western liberty of free expression. Charlie Hebdo’s offices were firebombed in 2011 over a caricature of Mohammed that depicted him saying, “100 lashes if you don’t die from laughter.”

To take just a couple of examples, “the penalty for drinking is to be scourged forty stripes,” although the caliph (the Islamic ruler) is authorized to increase this to 80 stripes — although he must pay an indemnity if death results. . . . Pretty moderate, right? (Reliance, p. 617, sec. o16.3.) For adultery “the penalty consists of being scourged one hundred stripes” — and that’s if the adulterer “is not considered to have the capacity to remain chaste” (e.g., if she “is prepubescent at the time of marital intercourse.” “If the offender is someone with the capacity to remain chaste, then he or she is stoned to death.” (Reliance, p. 610, sec. o12.2.)

What Charlie Hebdo has satirized is a savage reality. That reality was visited on the magazine again today. As night follows day, progressive governments in Europe and the United States are already straining to pretend that this latest atrocity is the wanton work of “violent extremists,” utterly unrelated to Islam. You are to believe, then, that François Hollande, Barack Obama, David Cameron, and their cohort of non-Muslim Islamophiles are better versed in sharia than the Muslim scholars who’ve dedicated their lives to its study and have endorsed such scholarly works as Reliance.

Let me repeat what I have detailed here before: Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State did not make up sharia law. Islam did. We can keep our heads tucked snug in the sand, or we can recognize the source of the problem.

As I detailed in Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, the literalist construction of sharia that Islamic supremacists seek to enforce is “literal” precisely because it comes from Islamic scripture, not from some purportedly “extremist” fabrication of Islam. Moreover, this “classical sharia” is enthusiastically endorsedin principle by several of the most influential institutions in the Islamic Middle East, which explains why it is routinely put into practice when Islamists are given — or seize — the opportunity to rule over a territory.

Reliance is not some al-Qaeda or Islamic State pamphlet. It is a renowned explication of sharia’s provisions and their undeniable roots in Muslim scripture. In the English translation, before you get to chapter and verse, there are formal endorsements, including one from the International Institute of Islamic Thought — a U.S.-based Muslim Brotherhood think tank begun in the early Eighties (and to which American administrations of both parties have resorted as an exemplar of “moderation”). Perhaps more significantly, there is also an endorsement from the Islamic Research Academy at al Azhar University, the ancient seat of Sunni learning to which President Obama famously turned to co-sponsor his cloyingly deceptive 2009 speech on relations between Islam and the West.

In their endorsement, the al-Azhar scholars wrote:

We certify that the . . . translation corresponds to the Arabic original and conforms to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni Community. . . . There is no objection to printing it and circulating it. . . . May Allah give you success in serving Sacred Knowledge and the religion.

There could be no more coveted stamp of scholarly approval in Islam.

Charlie Hebdo, of course, is in the business of cartoon caricature for satirical purposes. That is a time-honored method of expression, political and otherwise, in the West. That is in stark contrast to how such expression is viewed by Islam. Here, as I summarized in my book Spring Fever – quoted verbatim and supported by citations — is what Reliance has to say about such visual art forms:

It is forbidden to make pictures of “animate life,” for doing so “imitates the creative act of Allah Most High”; “Whoever makes a picture, Allah shall torture him with it on the Day of Judgment until he can breathe life into it, and he will never be able to.” (Reliance w50.0 & ff.)

Nor is visual depiction alone in drawing sharia’s wrath. “Musical instruments of all types are unlawful.” As Reliance elaborates, singing is generally prohibited (for “song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does herbage”), and “on the Day of Resurrection Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress.” There is an exception, though: If unaccompanied by musical instruments, song and poetry drawn from Islamic scripture and encouraging obedience to Allah are permissible. Ironically, although music is generally forbidden, dancing is permissible “unless it is languid, like the movements of the effeminate.” (Reliance r40.0 &ff.)

Understand, the prohibitions just described apply to artistic expression in general; Islam need not be lampooned for caricatures to run afoul of sharia. With that hostile predisposition in mind, let’s now consider Islam’s draconian treatment of expression that renounces Islam, belittles it or, in the slightest way, casts it in an unfavorable light:

Apostasy from Islam is “the ugliest form of unbelief” for which the penalty is death (“When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed”). (Reliance o8.0 & ff.)

Apostasy occurs not only when a Muslim renounces Islam but also, among other things, when a Muslim appears to worship an idol, when he is heard “to speak words that imply unbelief,” when he makes statements that appear to deny or revile Allah or the prophet Mohammed, when he is heard “to deny the obligatory character of something which by consensus of Muslims is part of Islam,” and when he is heard “to be sarcastic about any ruling of the Sacred Law.” (Reliance o8.7; see also p9.0 & ff.)

It is worth pausing to mull these latter prohibitions against denying or reviling any aspect of Islam, Allah, or the prophet. The call to kill apostates for such offensesobviously applies with equal or greater force to non-Muslims, who are pervasively treated far worse than Muslims are by sharia. See, for example, the infamous verse 29 from Sura 9, the Koran’s most bellicose chapter:

Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold forbidden which had been forbidden by Allah and his Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the people of the book [i.e., Christians and Jews], until they pay the jizya [the poll tax imposed on non-believers for the privilege of living in the Islamic state] and feel themselves subdued.

While insipid Western leaders cannot admonish us often enough that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” the French satirical magazine has offered a different take — one rooted in the cherished Western belief that examination in the light of day, rather than willful blindness, is the path to real understanding. In that tradition, a few other choice aspects of sharia, detailed by Muslim scholars in Reliance, are worth reviewing:

“Jihad means to war against non-Muslims.” (Reliance o9.0.)

It is an annual requirement to donate a portion of one’s income to the betterment of the ummah (an obligation called zakat, which is usually, and inaccurately, translated as “charity”); of this annual donation, one-eighth must be given to “those fighting for Allah, meaning people engaged in Islamic military operations for whom no salary has been allotted in the army roster. . . . They are given enough to suffice them for the operation even if they are affluent; of weapons, mounts, clothing and expenses.” (Reliance, h8.1–17.)

As commanded in the aforementioned Sura 9:29, non-Muslims are permitted to live in an Islamic state only if they follow the rules of Islam, pay the non-Muslim poll tax, and comply with various conditions designed to remind them that they have been subdued, such as wearing distinctive clothing, keeping to one side of the street, not being greeted with “Peace be with you” (“as-Salamu alaykum”), not being permitted to build as high as or higher than Muslims, and being forbidden to build new churches, recite prayers aloud, “or make public displays of their funerals or feast-days.” (Reliance o11.0 & ff.)

Offenses committed against Muslims, including murder, are more serious than offenses committed against non-Muslims. (Reliance o1.0 & ff; p2.0-1.)

A Muslim woman may marry only a Muslim man; a Muslim man may marry up to four women, who may be Muslim, Christian, or Jewish (but no apostates from Islam). (Reliance m6.0 & ff. — Marriage.)

A woman is required to be obedient to her husband and is prohibited from leaving the marital home without permission; if permitted to go out, she must conceal her figure or alter it “to a form unlikely to draw looks from men or attract them.” (Reliance p42.0 & ff.)

A non-Muslim may not be awarded custody of a Muslim child. (Reliance m13.2–3.)

A woman has no right of custody of her child from a previous marriage when she remarries “because married life will occupy her with fulfilling the rights of her husband and prevent her from tending to the child.” (Reliance m13.4.)

The penalty for theft is amputation of the right hand. (Reliance o14.0.)

The penalty for accepting interest (“usurious gain”) is death (i.e., to be considered in a state of war against Allah). (Reliance p7.0 & ff.)

The testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man. (Reliance o24.7.)

If a case involves an allegation of fornication (including rape), “then it requires four male witnesses.” (Reliance o24.9.)

The establishment of a caliphate is obligatory, and the caliph must be Muslim and male. “The Prophet . . . said, ‘Men are already destroyed when they obey women.’” (Reliance o25.0 & ff; see also p28.0, on Mohammed’s condemnation of “masculine women and effeminate men.”)

This is not “violent extremist” doctrine. This is Islamic doctrine — sharia, authoritatively explained and endorsed. Millions of Muslims, particularly in the West, do not abide by it and are working heroically — and at great risk to themselves — to marginalize or supersede it. Of course we should admire and help them. That, however, is not a reason to pretend that this doctrine does not exist. It is, furthermore, suicidal to ignore the fact that, because this doctrine is rooted in scripture and endorsed by influential scholars, some Muslims are going to act on it, and many millions more will support them.

This anti-liberty, supremacist, repulsively discriminatory, and sadly mainstream interpretation of Islam must be acknowledged and confronted. In its way, that is what Charlie Hebdo had been attempting to do — while, to their lasting shame, governments in the United States and Europe have been working with Islamist statesto promote sharia blasphemy standards. That needs to end. The future must not belong to those who brutalize free expression in the name of Islam.

ISNA shouldn’t be judged by its pleasant media interviews. Its documented history is where the truth can be found.

BY RYAN MAURO:

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) always denies its Brotherhood connections and says it is “moderate.” Some ISNA officials downplay its origins, insisting that it has charted its own course independent of the Brotherhood. ISNA’s Fiqh Council, its body of scholars, says otherwise.

In 2004, the Chicago Tribune reported that ISNA officials say “Brotherhood members helped form those groups but that their overall influence has been limited.” When ISNA is unable to escape the facts, it downplays them.

The same Islamists that birthed ISNA as a Muslim Brotherhood front lead the organization. A 2009 Hudson Institute study concluded, “All but one of the individuals listed on the ISNA founding documents remain active either in ISNA or one of its affiliated organizations.” The Brotherhood lobby members “continue to exist in their original form.”

To understand ISNA, you must understand that its Islamist orientation requires it to adhere to sharia, or Islamic law. Another word interchangeable with sharia is fiqh. The website, OnIslam.net, explains that “fiqh is our understanding and knowledge of Allah‘s Shari`ah.”

When making decisions, ISNA and other groups look to authoritative scholars of fiqh or sharia. It is these scholars that stand behind the moderate “faces” of ISNA like President Mohamed Magid. If you want to know the true nature of ISNA, you must look at its Fiqh Council of North America.

Of the 17 Fiqh Council officials, 14 have strong Islamist records. That is all but one member of the Executive Council and all but two of the Council members. The remaining members are not necessarily moderate. In fact, their inclusion should be considered a strike against their credentials as “moderates.”

An organization linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Qatari government is making a $1 billion real estate investment in the hope that the complex will “become the unequivocal centerpiece of Downtown D.C.” Among its features is a Qatari cultural center named Al-Bayt, or “Home.”

The 10-acre project, named CityCenterDC, is an initiative of Qatar Foundation International. According to its website, it is a “U.S.-based member of Qatar Foundation” in Doha. It is also its main financier.

In 2008, the chairperson of the Qatar Foundation and the Qatari Emir established the Al-Qaradawi Research Center. Qaradawi is the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and vocal supporter of its Palestinian wing, Hamas. He advocates the doctrine of “gradualism;”an incremental and practical strategy to stealthily advance the shariaagenda around the world.

The Research Center’s stated objective is promoting the ideology of Qaradawi, who it describes as a “pioneer of Islamic thought and presently its main theorist.” He teaches his followers to wage “jihadwith money.”

Former U.S. Treasury Department terrorism-financing analyst Jonathan Schanzer explains, “Qatar is the ATM of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and its associated groups.” Qatar has drawn the ire of moderate Muslims for its generous subsidizing of Islamists.

The National Endowment for the Humanities says it “strengthens our republic by promoting excellence in the humanities.” Apparently, the federal agency believes that funding student outreach by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity, fits this description.

The IIIT summary states that the program “is offered in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Humanities” and the event is supported by Student Life’s Intercultural Programs, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Alson H. Smith Jr. Library.

The FBI had informants inside the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network that warned about IIIT’s plan to “institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States” as far back as 1988. A declassified FBI document shows that a spy recalled the leadership “stated that the Muslims in the United States have to be prepared for martyrdom.”

The spy said that IIIT was currently focused on “peacefully get[ting] inside the United States government and also American universities.” Therefore, in this case, IIIT is using a taxpayer-funded federal agency to pursue the objective it has pursued for decades.

A 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo, later seized by the authorities, substantiated the FBI informant’s reporting. The secret document listed IIIT as one of the Brotherhood’s secret fronts as part of its “work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.”

Skeptics will point out that 1988 and 1991 were a long time ago, but 2002 isn’t. That’s the year when IIIT’s offices were raided as part of a terrorism-financing investigation. The probe continued until at least 2007 when the U.S. government was pressuring Sami al-Arian, a convicted terrorist, to testify about his strong links to IIIT.

In 1992, the President of IIIT wrote a letter to Sami al-Arian that said, “For us, we deem all of your institutions our own…” The letter discussed IIIT’s financial support of al-Arian’s group.

As recently as 2011, an IIIT official in London was writing articles characterizing the U.S. government and military as terrorists. He accused the U.S. of “killing literally millions of people and setting a dozen of countries on fire” since 2001. That IIIT official, Dr. Jasser Auda, also has links to Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, the terrorism-supporting spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The IIIT website proudly hosts a photo of two of its leaders meeting with then-President Morsi on September 27, 2012 in New York. At that time, Morsi was moving the Brotherhood’s Sharia agenda in Egypt full speed ahead. And, according to the caption beneath the photo, he “welcomed the participation of IIIT in the rerform [sic] of higher education in Egypt.”

To sum it up: The same organization that the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to “reform” education in Egypt is now educating American students with the help of a taxpayer-supported federal agency.

Shenandoah University is just a case study in what IIIT is accomplishing. Dr. Calvin Allen, Dean of its College of Arts and Sciences, signed a Memorandum of Agreement with IIIT so the Brotherhood front could “designate an instructor to co-teach with Dr. Allen a course on Islamic civilization.”

Allen signed the agreement with Jamal Barzinji, IIIT’s Vice President and one of the founding fathers of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network. In 2003, the authorities searched Barzinji’s residence because he “is not only closely associated with PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad]…but also with Hamas.” Allen also spoke at a IIIT fundraiser on August 24, 2011.

Readers are encouraged to send this article and the Clarion Project’s full profile of IIIT to Shenandoah University. The listed contact for the event is Dean Cal Allen (callen@su.edu). The school can also be contacted at shenuniv@su.edu and 540-665-4500.

The National Endowment for the Humanities can be contacted at info@neh.gov and 202-606-8400. You can also write the agency at 1100 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington, D.C., 20506.

Every cent given to a Muslim Brotherhood-linked organization is a cent wasted. American taxpayers need to make their voices heard.

The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) has announced that it was scheduled to hold an outreach program at Shenandoah University in Virginia. According to the IIIT announcement, the program was to be held in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Humanities, an arm of the US government:

International Institute of Islamic Thought

Thursday, October 24, 2013 The International Institute of Islamic Thought and The Fairfax Institute will conduct an outreach program at Shenandoah University on Thursday October 24, 2013. The program -which starts from 2 to 5 p.m. in the Brandt Student Center (703 University Dr., Winchester, VA, 22601)- includes an information booth featuring Abbas Baghdadi, an Arabic calligrapher and book exhibit in the main lobby. Dr. Daoud Nassimi, who will teach ‘Introduction to Islam’ during the spring 2014 semester, will introduce a documentary film, ‘The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain,’ at 2 p.m. in the BSC, Room 118. This program is offered in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Humanities and presented by Shenandoah’s Muslim Student Association, Student Life’s Intercultural Programs, the College of Arts & Sciences and the Alson H. Smith Jr. Library. The program is open to the university and Winchester communities.

In 2007, IIIT entered into a partnership with Shenandoah University described as follows:

IIIT vice president Dr. Jamal Bazrinji and dean of Shenandoah University’s College of Arts and Sciences Dr. Calvin Allen, Jr. signed a Memorandum of Agreement on June 13 to initiate and promote academic cooperation between the two institutions. The signing took place at IIIT’s office in Herndon, Virginia. The agreement calls for cooperation in “course development, educational programs, and research with a goal of promoting an understanding of Islam and Muslims in America, and Islamic civilization and culture, “based on “the principles of equality and reciprocal benefit.” Also agreed upon was the first cooperative venture under this agreement. IIIT’s instructional division, The Fairfax Institute, will designate an instructor to co-teach with Dr. Allen a course on Islamic civilization. Shenandoah University is a growing liberal Arts academic institution aiming at extending its program beyond its campus and establishing partnerships to do so. Through its research affiliates in the U.S. and in many parts of the world, IIIT will contribute to the University’s efforts to build relationships and programs in line with its objective to train “global citizens”. These could include study abroad programs as well as additional courses on Shenandoah’s campuses in Winchester and Leesburg as well as on The Fairfax Institute’s campus in Herndon.

In August 2011, the Shenandoah Dean of Arts and Sciences spoke at an IIIT Iftar event that also included Governor John Sununu, former Chief of Staff at the White House for President George Bush, Sr.

The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) describes itself as “a private, non-profit, academic, cultural and educational institution, concerned with general issues of Islamic thought and education” and using the slogan “Towards Islamization of Knowledge and Reform of Islamic Thought.” The concept for IIIT was developed at a meeting held in Lugano, Switzerland that was attended by many luminaries of the Global Muslim Brotherhood including Youssef Qaradawi. IIIIT was founded in the U.S. in 1980 by U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leaders including Iraqi-born Jamal Barzinji and Hisham Altalib who wished to promote the Islamization of Knowledge as conceived by Ismail Al-Faruqi and who were also early leaders of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). A1991 internal document of the US Muslim Brotherhood, introduced as evidence in the holy Land Foundation trial, included IIIT in “a list of our organizations and organizations of our friends.” IIIT was associated with the now defunct SAAR Foundation, a network of Islamic organizations located in Northern Virginia that was raided by the Federal government in March 2002 in connection with the financing of terrorism and both organizations had been under investigation at that time by the U.S. Justice Department until at least mid 2007. The organization appeared to have withdrawn from public view following the 2002 raids but seems to be enjoying a renaissance of late. The IIIT Council of Scholars includes a number of important individuals from the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood such as Ingrid Mattson, the former President of ISNA. IIIT has a network of affiliates located in Europe, Africa, the MIddle East, and Asia and is heavily involved with publishing and promoting publications by Global Muslim Brotherhood leaders including Youssef Qaradawi who, according to one source, serves as an IIIT trustee.

Promotional material issued by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) indicates that US Naval Academy instructor Ermin Sinanovic is now serving as the IIIT Research Director. According to an IIIT announcement:

Ermin Sinanovic at IIIT (2nd from right)

September 12, 2013 The 2nd MACCPAC – TFI Youth Leadership Program was held at the IIIT headquarters during the week of August 12-16, 2013. MACCPAC’s mission is to promote mutual understanding and engagement in national security, human rights, justice, peace and democracy in the public squares all across the United States, and in other Muslim countries around the world. The purpose of the Youth Leadership Program is to create opportunities for Muslim American college and high school senior students interested in civic engagement and quality career development to meet Muslims who are leaders in those fields. Students represented colleges from Yale to George Mason, as well as metro area high schools.

The program began with orientation session that was led by Aktar Hossain, MACCPAC National Director; Dr. Sulayman Nyang; Dr. Ermin Sinanovic, Research Director for IIIT; and Abrar Omeish, MACCPAC Fellow.

Students heard from many speakers on a broad range of topics. These sessions included: ‘Responsibility of Muslim Youth in America,’ ‘Political Education in America,’ ‘Information about the Media,’ ‘College education and career development,’ and many others.

As the week went on, student feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Nouran Ghanem, an aspiring doctor, said she walked away with a firm belief on the values of mentorship, ‘If I can reach an exceptional level in my career, then it’s my obligation to help those younger than me, and especially young Muslims just as this program has done for me’.

The program also included visits to local Muslim communities at Dar al-Hijrah, ADAMS, as well as a day trip to Washington, DC, and visits to Capitol Hill, the State Department, and the White House. The program successfully concluded on August 16 with a graduation ceremony which included a graduation speech by Dr. Yaqub Mirza, and certificates award to participating students.

Both Aktar Hossein and Sulayman Nyang are both close to the US Muslim Brotherhood and Abrar Omeish is the daughter of Esam Omeish, a former leader of the Muslim American Society (MAS), a US Muslim Brotherhood organization close to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In 2007, he resigned from the Virginia State Commission on Immigration following the pubic release of videos showing him condemning Israel and advocating “the jihad way.” In October 2012, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented Abrar Omeish with a Girl Scout “100th Anniversary” pin during the State Department’s observance of the first International Day of the Girl Child.

…an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, USA. He studied for an MA and a PhD in Political Science at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Prof. Sinanovic obtained two BAs (one in Qur’an and Sunnah Studies, the other in Political Science) and an MA (Islamic Civilization) from the International Islamic University Malaysia. His research interests include transnational Islamic revival, Southeast Asian politics, Islamic movements, Middle East politics, Islamic political thought, and Islam and politics in general. At the Naval Academy, Prof. Sinanovic teaches courses on Southeast Asian politics, Middle East politics, and Islam and politics. He speaks Bosnian, English, Arabic, and Malay. “

Dr. Sinanovic is also one of the founding members of the Bosniak Academy of Sciences and Arts, closely associated with Mustafa Ceric, the former Grand Mufti of Bosnia and an associate of Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi. In September 2008, IIIT met with Dr. Ceric to discuss a proposal to a new University in Bosnia with IIIT acting as a consultant.

Dr. Sinanovic has also been featured at other IIIT events and as reported by the GMBDW in May, the IIITannounced that he would be teaching at a summer school from 24 August – 7 September 2013 in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina. A flyer about the program indicated that the major speaker at the IIIT Bosnian summer school would be Global Muslim Brotherhood figure Tariq Ramadan. Our report also noted that one of the other instructors at the IIIT summer program would be US Muslim Brotherhood leader Louay Safi who was the subject of a pending criminal inquiry following the shooting at Fort Hood near Killeen, Texas on November 5, 2009 in the worst shooting ever to take place on an American military base. The inquiry followed revelations that the US Defense Department had brought Dr. Safi to Fort Hood as an instructor and that he had been lecturing on Islam to troops in Fort Hood who were about to deploy to Afghanistan. Another instructor at the summer program was to be Jasser Aouda (aka Jasser Auda), a member of the IIIT Academic Council and a close associate of Youssef Qaradawi as well as Tariq Ramadan.

Here, Elibiary admits that the US Muslim Brotherhood existed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but references its internal communications that complain about the group’s inability to control the Muslim-American community. After pointing out that these communications were decades ago, Elibiary says “the concept of a US Muslim Brotherhood becomes even more of an absurd overreach.”

Mauro: Why do you think concern about the US Muslim Brotherhood, whose existence was proven during the Holy Land Foundation trial, is “Islamophobia” and what do you think should happen as a result?

Elibiary: American Muslim Brotherhood leaders themselves, as far back as the late 1980s and early 1990s in publicly-available documents from the HLF trial, lament the fact that the American Muslim community had grown way too large for them to influence it. Add to that another nearly three decades of further growth and the concept of a US Muslim Brotherhood becomes even more of an absurd overreach.

In other words, Elibiary argues that the US Muslim Brotherhood essentially evaporated. The fact that the US Muslim Brotherhood network does not enjoy as much Muslim support as it would like is presented as proof that it doesn’t exist anymore at all. However, most of the organizations identified as US Muslim Brotherhood entities still exist, as do many of the officials that served during the time that Elibiary concedes they were Brotherhood groups.

A 2009 Hudson Institute study looked at the Islamic Society of North America, one such Brotherhood entity. It concluded, “All but one of the individuals listed on the ISNA founding documents remain active either in ISNA or one of its affiliated organizations” and that ISNA and other Brotherhood affiliates “continue to exist in their original form.” Furthermore, a 2004 Chicago Tribune investigation gave readers “a rare look at [the] secretive [Muslim] Brotherhood in America.”

Elibiary (cont’d): Plus, as part of my engagement with Muslim communities across the country, I have met privately with all the major national Muslim organizations regularly demonized as “front groups” for the Muslim Brotherhood and gained from them all a very clear understanding of their perspectives on Islamism/Political Islam in our country. In my opinion, these community organizations are in 2013 operating as American organizations fully within the bounds of US law for the benefit of the American Muslim community and broader American society.

If it’s a matter of recognizing and addressing legitimate security concerns about the “US Muslim Brotherhood,” you’d be hard pressed to find someone who’s done more substantively on the topic than I have over the past decade.

As the FBI’s own press release about some of my work stated, I’ve been building up community-based partnerships with law enforcement since 2003. One can’t do that in the Dallas-based environment where I grew up without first addressing the mess left behind by HLF. Therefore, it’s illogical to ever accuse me of being dismissive of legitimate “concerns about the US Muslim Brotherhood” as simply “Islamophobia.”

The most important part of this section is Mr. Elibiary’s comments suggesting that he has helped protect US Muslim Brotherhood entities. The language strongly infers that the US government was preparing to indict components of the US Muslim Brotherhood network besides the Holy Land Foundation—and, perhaps, he played a role in stopping it from happening. There are three quotes that stand out:

“I helped my community pick up the pieces and safeguard its nonprofit organizations, in order to protect its liberties, after the HLF’s closure and eventual conviction.”

“But the corollary to my position was that if the Muslim community leadership and the government can mutually reconcile and turn a new page, then the targeted national Muslim community organizations should be allowed to proceed anew.”

“As has been reported in multiple conservative media outlets over the past few years, the long-desired HLF 2.0 trial for the unindicted co-conspirators isno longer going to happen.”

Elibiary’s efforts to “safeguard” American Islamists from prosecution substantiates the April 2011 reports by Patrick Poole that the Justice Department stopped planned indictments of HLF co-conspirators including a founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and several officials with the International Institute of Islamic Thought and the now-defunct SAAR Group.

Elibiary (cont’d): The bottom line is that my decade-plus track record is clear to anyone with an objective eye. In my career, I have both advocated in defense of the Muslim community as well as directly pioneered the at-times dangerous counter-ideological work associated with several of our nation’s biggest homegrown terrorism investigations.

Post-9/11, I decided to respond by assisting our government counter threats to the homeland from al-Qaeda and its associated allies. Simultaneously, I helped my community pick up the pieces and safeguard its nonprofit organizations, in order to protect its liberties, after the HLF’s closure and eventual conviction.

A segment of our fellow Americans see those two goals as mutually exclusive. I naturally disagree with that assessment and my track record indicates that. I staked out a flag early after HLF was closed that, due to some mistakes made before 9/11 by community members, the criminal trial should be allowed to proceed and the criminal justice system’s verdict respected. But the corollary to my position was that if the Muslim community leadership and the government can mutually reconcile and turn a new page, then the targeted national Muslim community organizations should be allowed to proceed anew.

The following passage is important, as Elibiary acknowledges America’s “legitimate security concerns about Muslim Brotherhood-associated networks.” While being candid, Elibiary recognition of these networks at all puts him at odds with most of his ideological allies in Muslim activism—and, indeed, the mainstream media and far-left activists as well—who disregard the mountains of court-admitted evidence of Brotherhood’s web of influence in America as little more than a conspiracy theory. Later in the interview, though, Elibiary seems to contradict himself and approve of this narrative, if only to use as a cudgel against his critics.

Elibiary (cont’d): Staking out that middle-of-the-road position that would satisfy all of the government’s legitimate security concerns about Muslim Brotherhood-associated networks providing material support to terrorism and the organized Muslim community maintaining certain nonprofits and their civic engagement capabilities, naturally was not acceptable to absolutists at both ends of the spectrum.

There were those voices in the Muslim community who wondered if I might be a sellout because I wouldn’t join the HLF’s Hungry for Justice Coalition and instead staked out an independent public messaging line in the media. Similarly, there were voices in the anti-Islamist advocacy community, including their law enforcement and media allies, who frankly continue to see that, because I won’t accept the marginalization and eventual indictment of the HLF unindicted co-conspirator community organizations, that I can’t be fully trusted in a post-9/11 Global War on Terror.

Naturally, I have been happy to see, by and large, the United States government arrive at a similar endpoint as I staked out a decade ago in Dallas. As has been reported in multiple conservative media outlets over the past few years, the long-desired HLF 2.0 trial for the unindicted co-conspirators is no longer going to happen.

So with the HLF 1.0 trial’s appeal process now complete and no more HLF-associated “US Muslim Brotherhood” trials coming, an honest and frank discussion should publicly happen between all the parties so our country can move forward.

A former member of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (a US Muslim Brotherhood entity), Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, recalls being at a group meeting in the early 1990s where they discussed using the term against their opponents. He later said, “This loathsome term is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliché conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics.”

Elibiary (cont’d): Islamophobia or anti-Muslim bigotry as I prefer to call it, today in “God’s greatest nation” as Michael Medved says, to me comes in three varieties. The first form of Islamophobia is simply an irrational bigotry towards anything Islam- or Muslim-related, and that’s a very small percentage of our population that I don’t really worry about because it’s driven by a diminishing emotional radicalization dynamic.

The second form of Islamophobia is a Western civilization phenomenon, aptly coined “anti-Semitism on training wheels” by Suhail Khan, a former Bush White House official, during his debate with Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy at the Harbor League years ago.

This form is strongly rejected by Jewish community leaders because it smacks of a “Protocols of Elders of Zion”-type narrative about Muslims trying to take over the world. It tells Americans that Islamic theology is uniquely a threat to our way of life and therefore needs special preventative legal measures, just as in centuries past, Western anti-Semites used to make the same arguments of Jews and their faith as being incompatible with enlightened European Christian values.

The third form of Islamophobia treats the 2013’s organized American Muslim community as a counter-intelligence subversive front group for the international Islamist movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood. This approach treats the American Muslim community with undeserved and unfair suspicion, and marginalizes a sizable portion of our fellow citizens out of the political mainstream, like a pariah.

I, more than most, have gone out of my way to sit down with fellow Americans who find themselves concerned about Muslim Brotherhood associations within the American Muslim community to help them find peace of mind after separating fact from fiction.

Unlike some other Muslim community leaders who’ve wholesale labeled all Americans in this category as similar to the “anti-Semitism on training wheels” second category of “Islamophobia,” I have privately gone out of my way to speak graciously with those who’ve most viciously attacked me publicly as a subversive threat myself to our national security and offered to clarify their misunderstandings in this area.

Patrick Poole broke the story that Elibiary was suspected of trying to leak confidential information for political purposes. Elibiary claims that Poole never contacted him before publishing the story, while Poole told me that Elibiary never responded to him.

As Poole previously pointed out, the Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed that Elibiary downloaded the documents in question. When Secretary Napolitano apparently denied Poole’s story, she was responding to a question about whether Elibiary tried to leak “classified” information. Poole never asserted that the documents were classified; he said they were marked “Law Enforcement Sensitive.”

In addition, Poole told the Clarion Project that the Department of Homeland Security: “At no time was I or my source ever contacted by anyone at DHS. How could they have done an investigation with only one side being heard?”

Elibiary (cont’d): For example, in early 2011, after completing my speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), I approached Patrick Poole, a terrorism investigative reporter, and handed him my business card offering to talk and explain things after his public broadside of me in Andrew Breitbart’sBig Peace news site for helping the Department of Homeland Security with its Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) policies.

I never heard from Patrick until 8 months later when he emailed me requesting my response to his charge against me of mishandling classified intelligence, a charge I would later be publicly cleared of a few months later in a congressional hearing after an investigation by our government.

Similarly with Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert, as he personally recalled our interaction on a conservative talk radio program, I privately walked up to him in June 2012 at the Texas GOP Convention and offered to answer any of his concerns about my work. Unfortunately, the Congressman declined my offer and proceeded to, within about a month in partnership with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Congressman Trent Franks and others, to fire off a letter to the Inspector General of DHS requesting I get investigated for Muslim Brotherhood influence.

For the past decade or so, a strange phenomenon has taken place whereby a small group of extreme leftist Jews have willingly aligned themselves with Islamists, mainly out of a common animosity towards the foreign policies of America, Israel and other Western Capitalist societies. These Jews generally function as political pawns and stooges acting against their own best interests, but none of them have gone on to head the Islamist organizations they have teamed with. That is, until now.

On October 15th, the Philadelphia office of the radical Muslim group CAIR put out a press release announcing that it had hired Jacob Bender, a left-wing Jewish activist and filmmaker, as its new Executive Director.

Hiring Bender was a public relations win for CAIR. For Bender, he joins a group that, in his estimation, appears to be like-minded, especially on the issue of Israel.

CAIR or the Council on American-Islamic Relations was founded in June 1994 as a part of an umbrella organization led by then-global leader of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook. In 2007 and 2008, CAIR was named a co-conspirator by the U.S. Justice Department for two federal trials dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. The three original founders of CAIR, one of which is still the national Executive Director, were coming from the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), the then-American propaganda wing of Hamas. CAIR had used its website to raise funds for the then-American financing arm of Hamas, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF).

Jacob Bender, for his part, has spent a good portion of his life denouncing the Jewish state. He blames all problems regarding Palestinians on Israel. In one letter to a newspaper, he writes, “The vast settlement project… is only the most visible manifestation of Israel’s four-decade long rule over Palestinian territory, an occupation that has included torture, political assassination, home demolitions and economic strangulation.”

And what does Bender think about “the growth of terrorism and Islamist extremism” from Israel’s enemies? He blames that on Israel, as well. He writes, in another letter, that they are “a direct result of its oppression of the Palestinians.”

One thing he does acknowledge, though, is that there is widespread “antipathy” for Jews throughout the Muslim world. He quotes a Pew survey reporting on its findings and saying as such. But that does not give him pause from his blame-Jew-first mentality.

Indeed, the organization he now joins, along with a number of its representatives, has long been associated with anti-Semitism. Even today, CAIR continues to propagate hatred against Jews. On its ‘Explore the Quran’ website, the group features versions of the Quran that spread the worst of bigotry. In English, the site labels Muslims, who take Jews or Christians as allies, “evildoers.” It refers to Jews as “men who will listen to any lie.” Of Jews and Christians, the site states, “Allah’s curse be on them.”

Previously, CAIR had distributed to libraries across America an English language Quran that had been banned by the Los Angeles public school system for containing numerous anti-Jewish commentaries. The initiative had been funded by Alwaleed bin Talal, a wealthy Saudi who, in April 2002, donated $27 million to a telethon raising money for Palestinian suicide bombers.

Another large donor of the film was the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). In March 2002, IIIT had its Virginia offices raided by the FBI in a probe that targeted over a dozen businesses accused of financing terrorism. One of the groups IIIT was said to have financed was the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), a now-defunct Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) front run by PIJ leader Sami al-Arian. The raids led to the convictions of two individuals.

A 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo identifies IIIT as one of its fronts. The memo tells the clandestine Brotherhood network to think of their “work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within…”

These linkages remain. On September 24, 2012, two IIIT leaders, Abubaker Al-Shingheti and Jamal Barzinji met with then-President of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, in New York. He was the Muslim Brotherhood’s official candidate. The IIIT website has a photo of them together with the caption, “[Morsi] welcomed the participation of IIIT in the rerform [sic] of higher education in Egypt.”

In 1988, an FBI informant inside the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network warned that IIIT is a front and it is following a six-staged plan to “institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.” The first stage was to “peacefully get inside the United States government and also American universities.”

Keep that in mind as you read the rest of this article. We also encourage you to read our earlier expose.

They learned about the Quran and Sunna from Professor Mahmoud Ayoub of Connecticut’s Hartford Seminary. IIIT donated over $1 million to endow a Chair in Islamic Chaplaincy at the school. As our earlier expose documented, the Seminary’s President has spoken at an IIIT fundraiser.

Contemporary Islamic Thought was taught by Dr. Ermin Sinanovic of the U.S. Naval Academy. He also lectured at IIIT headquarters last year.

The rest of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network is admiring the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) for its success in forging interfaith partnerships. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has announced that its 19th annual banquet will honor the Islamist that has become the face of that success: Sayyid Syeed of ISNA.

CAIR blasted out an email announcing Syeed as the winner of the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award. The biography provided by CAIR in the email shows how Syeed has dedicated his life to the Islamist cause, moving from one U.S. Brotherhood entity to the next.

Today, he is the Director of ISNA’s Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances. Prior to that, he served for 12 years as the Secretary-General of ISNA. In 2006, he was videotapedsaying, “Our job is to change the constitution of America.”

In his capacity as ISNA’s main interfaith liaison, Syeed has established relationships with a long list of churches, synagogues, other faith groups and the Obama Administration. President Obama sent a videotaped address to ISNA for its 50th annual convention, singling out its interfaith campaign for praise.

ISNA chose Syeed for this role because is one of their most seasoned officials.

He was president of the Muslim Students Association from 1980 to 1983, the first Muslim Brotherhood front set up in the U.S. He has also been the general secretary of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists. From 1984 to 1994, he was the director the director of academic outreach for the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

In 1988, right in the middle of Syeed’s tenure at IIIT, an FBI informant inside the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network said that IIIT’s leaders had a six-phase plan to “institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.” The current task was to “peacefully get inside the United States government and also American universities.”

The rest of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network is admiring the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) for its success in forging interfaith partnerships. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has announced that its 19th annual banquet will honor the Islamist that has become the face of that success: Sayyid Syeed of ISNA.

CAIR blasted out an email announcing Syeed as the winner of the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award. The biography provided by CAIR in the email shows how Syeed has dedicated his life to the Islamist cause, moving from one U.S. Brotherhood entity to the next.

Today, he is the Director of ISNA’s Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances. Prior to that, he served for 12 years as the Secretary-General of ISNA. In 2006, he was videotaped saying, “Our job is to change the constitution of America.”

In his capacity as ISNA’s main interfaith liaison, Syeed has established relationships with a long list of churches, synagogues, other faith groups and the Obama Administration. President Obama sent a videotaped address to ISNA for its 50th annual convention, singling out its interfaith campaign for praise.

ISNA chose Syeed for this role because is one of their most seasoned officials.

He was president of the Muslim Students Association from 1980 to 1983, the first Muslim Brotherhood front set up in the U.S. He has also been the general secretary of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists. From 1984 to 1994, he was the director the director of academic outreach for the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

In 1988, right in the middle of Syeed’s tenure at IIIT, an FBI informant inside the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network said that IIIT’s leaders had a six-phase plan to “institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.” The current task was to “peacefully get inside the United States government and also American universities.”

As IIIT’s director of academic outreach, Syeed was the point man in achieving that objective. He then went on to lead ISNA from 1994 to 2006. Brotherhood documents identify all four groups he led as its fronts.

In 2011, Wahhaj offered the following advice to a large Muslim audience, as reported by the Clarion Project: “The trap we fall into is having a premature discussion about Sharia when we are not there yet.”

Wahhaj should follow his own advice, as it is his words that are among the most damning evidence.

ISNA’s 50-year history is nothing to be exalted. In 1991, a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo placed ISNA at the top of a secret list of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” The document said the organization’s “work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within…”

In 2007, federal prosecutors named ISNA an unindicted co-conspirator in the terrorism-financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity housed within ISNA. The U.S. government identified ISNA as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity. The designation was upheld in 2009 due to “ample” evidence linking ISNA to Hamas.

An FBI informant inside the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network identified ISNA as a Brotherhood front as early as 1987. The source was documented as being “convinced” that the Brotherhood fronts have “a secret agenda which includes the spread of the Islamic Revolution to all non-Islamic governments in the world which does include the United States.”

President Obama complimented ISNA’s engagement of non-Muslims:

“I’m especially grateful to the work that ISNA has done to advance interfaith understanding and cooperation here at home and around the world,” Obama said.

ISNA’s Office of Interfaith and Community Alliances is led by Sayyid Syeed, previously the Secretary-General of ISNA. In 2006, he was recorded saying, “Our job is to change the constitution of America.”

Syeed was also the Director of Academic Outreach for the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity, from 1984 to 1994.

The aforementioned FBI source specifically warned in 1988 that IIIT’s leadership talked about a six-phase plan to “institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.” The current objective was to “peacefully get inside the United States government and also American universities.”

Syeed, whose interfaith work is praised by President Obama, was one of IIIT’s leaders at the time that warning was written.